Hacker replaces Fairbanks school district's home page

FAIRBANKS (AP) -- A hacker replaced the Fairbanks school district's home page on the Web with red expletives written on a black screen.

The page, which made reference to the ''Net-Mafia,'' was up for about four hours before district personnel removed it after being alerted by a teacher.

''This is the first time we have been compromised,'' network administrator Greg Yocum said. ''We have been attacked thousands and thousands of times, but this is the first compromise.''

The hacker started trying to break into the system at about 3:20 p.m. Sunday and succeeded about an hour later.

''He tried some things to get in and he finally hit on this one little thing,'' Yocum said.

He said the district has already traced the break-in to an Internet account in Phoenix. He said it appears the person used a regular dial-up connection through a provider there to access the district's site.

Gaylin Fuller, the district's executive director for instructional services, said the hacker didn't tamper with anything else in the district's computer system. Student and employee records were not accessed, he said.